I‘ve been looking at the UK’s contribution to the EU budget in a slightly non-standard way, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the UK has a lot more leverage than is often suggested, although that may rely on a credible threat to leave Europe. The rest of Europe would certainly not like to lose our net contribution of around 20% of all the disbursements to net beneficiaries. So let’s have a serious debate about what is needed to make Europe work, and engage constructively in fixing the EU.
So, what data have I been looking at? What set me thinking was the BBC’s data presentation in this article. This is a little out of date, but provides an interesting way to look at the UK’s net contribution.
If the figures in this table are correct (there are at least two obvious errors, which I’ve reverse-engineered/guessed) then for the years 2000-2010 the UK has been contributing an average of 12% of the proportion of the EU budget which is disbursed as net payments to individual countries. (I’ve pasted my re-arrangement of those figures at the end of this email). This year, the contribution will be £10.78 billion.
Looking at 2012, referring to Open Europe’s 2012 Budget document, I’m guessing the total of net receipts/net payouts from graph 3 at around 36Bn or 52Bn, depending on which side of the graph you add up (is the difference really the cost of running the EU itself!?!), making the UK contribution 29% or 20% of the net outflow! Whatever the actual figures, the EU will not be keen to lose that spending power!
This all goes to show that the UK is in a strong position to tell Europe what to do, provided there’s a real threat of it leaving the EU. If it left, other net contributors would need to increase contribution by 25%, or the net receivers would lose 20% of their subsidy. Neither seems politically attractive for your EU partners!
Those figures mean that a credible threat to leave the EU would certainly concentrate the minds of the rest of Europe. With such power, I argue that we in the UK need to have a serious debate about how we’d like Europe to evolve, and how we’d like our relationship with the EU to be defined. Which I suppose gives more weight to Andrew Duff’s pamphlet!
Edit: I should make it clear I’m not arguing for leaving the EU. Rather, I’m agitating for more serious thinking in the UK about how we can push our partners towards a better EU, on the grounds that we have the real ability to make a significant difference.
[If anyone has better figures, I’d love to hear from you.]
Here are the rearranged figures from http://www.eu-oplysningen.dk/euo_en/spsv/all/79/ for your delectation:
2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | |
Belgium | -323.2 | -745.2 | -517.7 | -779.7 | -536.1 | -607.5 | -709.9 | -868.2 | -720.6 | -1663.9 | -1466.4 |
Czech Republic | – | – | – | 272.2 | 178 | 386.2 | 656.7 | 1178 | 1702.5 | 2079.3 | |
Denmark | 239.6 | -223.1 | -169.1 | -220 | -224.6 | -265.3 | -505.2 | -604.4 | -543.2 | -969.5 | -615.3 |
Germany | -8232.4 | -6971.5 | -4954 | -7605.4 | -7140.4 | -6064.3 | -6325.2 | -7379.2 | -8774.3 | -6357.5 | -9223.6 |
Estonia | – | – | – | 145 | 154.3 | 176.4 | 226.2 | 227.4 | 573 | 672.7 | |
Greece | 4380.6 | 4503.6 | 3375.7 | 3358.3 | 4163.3 | 3900.5 | 5102.3 | 5437.2 | 6279.7 | 3121 | 3597.4 |
Spain | 5263.6 | 7661.2 | 8859.4 | 8704.9 | 8502.3 | 6017.8 | 3811.7 | 3615.8 | 2813.2 | 1181.8 | 4100.9 |
France | -676.6 | -2043.4 | -2218.4 | -1976.1 | -3050.7 | -2883.5 | -3012.5 | -2997.3 | -3842.7 | -5872.7 | -5534.8 |
Ireland | 1719.5 | 1198.3 | 1574.1 | 1559 | 1593.8 | 1136.6 | 1080.5 | 662.1 | 566.1 | -47.5 | 803.9 |
Italy | 1231.2 | -2030.9 | -2917.1 | -849.8 | -2946.9 | -2199 | -1731.8 | -2013.5 | -4101.4 | -5058.5 | -4534 |
Cyprus | – | – | – | 63.5 | 90.3 | 102.4 | -10.5 | -17.7 | -2.3 | 10.6 | |
Latvia | – | – | – | 197.7 | 263.9 | 255.5 | 488.8 | 407 | 501.5 | 674.2 | |
Lithuania | – | – | – | 369.3 | 476.4 | 585.3 | 793.2 | 842.6 | 1493.3 | 1358.4 | |
Luxembourg | -54.6 | -140 | -48.1 | -57.2 | -93.6 | -86.8 | -60.2 | -139.8 | -22.1 | -100.2 | -41.9 |
Hungary | – | – | – | 193.4 | 590.1 | 1115 | 1605.9 | 1111.7 | 2719.4 | 2748.4 | |
Malta | – | – | – | 45 | 90 | 101 | 28.1 | 30 | 8.6 | 52.9 | |
The Netherlands | -1543.9 | -2259.9 | -2171.3 | -1942.2 | -2034.9 | -2636.6 | -2587.6 | -2864.3 | -2678.2 | 117.7 | -1833.1 |
Austria | -435.5 | -542.4 | -212.6 | -330.9 | -365.1 | -277.9 | -301.5 | -563.2 | -356.4 | -402.1 | -677 |
Poland | – | – | – | 1438.3 | 1853.2 | 2997.6 | 5136.4 | 4441.7 | 6337.1 | 8427.5 | |
Portugal | 2128.2 | 1773.8 | 2682.7 | 3476.3 | 3124 | 2378 | 2291.7 | 2474.4 | 2695.1 | 2150.7 | 2622.6 |
Slovenia | – | – | – | 109.7 | 101.5 | 142.8 | 88.6 | 113.8 | 241.9 | 424.1 | |
Slovakia | – | – | – | 169.2 | 270.9 | 323.2 | 617.8 | 725.6 | 542.1 | 1349.6 | |
Finland | 275.9 | -153 | -4.9 | -26.7 | -69.6 | -84.8 | -241 | -171.6 | -318.5 | -544.2 | -300.2 |
Sweden | -1058.7 | -982.9 | -750.4 | -945.6 | -1059.8 | -866.9 | -856.6 | -994.8 | -1463.1 | -85.6 | -1211.4 |
United Kingdom | -2913.7 | 955.4 | -2528.4 | -2364.9 | -2864.9 | -1529 | -2140.2 | -4155.3 | -844.3 | -1903.3 | -5625.9 |
Bulgaria | – | – | – | – | – | – | 335.1 | 669.6 | 624.2 | 895.5 | |
Romania | – | – | – | – | – | – | 595.8 | 1581 | 1692.5 | 1245.2 | |
Check | 0.0 | 0.0 | -0.1 | 0.0 | 0.1 | -0.1 | -0.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | -0.4 |
Budget | 15238.6 | 16092.3 | 16491.9 | 17098.5 | 20386.7 | 17501.5 | 18471.6 | 22762.1 | 23682.5 | 23007.3 | 31063.2 |
UK contribution | 19% | -6% | 15% | 14% | 14% | 9% | 12% | 18% | 4% | 8% | 18% |